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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8391297" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Spells you just used one of to confirm that you may possibly run into a dragon. Likely lost when the DM gave you a hint and you used it to confirm. And what if you "know" there is a dragon, but it is the innkeeper in the town you just left and you never encounter them while traveling? Now you have spent a spell slot to waste resources saving them for an event that will never happen, based off bad information that you couldn't have even gotten without using this ability. I'm sorry Max, there is no way to make this ability good. Any sort of "we know what is around" that this allows is more easily allowed through simple DM foreshadowing. Which is free, and doesn't end up nearly as imprecise.Probable terrain for what? The dragon could be in the sky or underground. It could be shapeshifted in to a rat or simply lying hiding in the woods 4 miles from where you are in the woods. If you have an Eagle Barbarian and if you are level 6, then you can see for a mile, but we were talking about the favored terrain, which is 6 miles. What spells do you use? How was this useful to use a spell to learn that you need to use spells? The fey could be in that copse of wood. In a veiled tree hollow 5 and half miles away. Trapped in a crystal buried in a treasure chest, underneath a berry bush. You have no idea. You have used up a precious spell slot to confirm what the DM was already hinting at. There is nothing valuable you can learn other than "yes, somewhere, there is something."Which is why the support by the other analysis's which show that a 16 is the most likely baseline for attributes, by being the average of the roll, by being the most likely number from putting your standard array into a race that follows the archetype, and it being the best you can do with the point-buy and getting an archetypical  race, is so important. Because that shows the 16 is supported, and that that number also follows the design intent.This isn't a one-legged stool.These aren't arguments anymore, just you refusing to listen. Dude. They kept rolling because everyone was going to do it anyways. Rolling has been part of DnD since Chainmail. They weren't going to cut it. They had no choice but to keep it, but they knew not everyone liked random stats, which is why the array was included. And they made sure the array was as close as they could get it, while still making sure to make easy access to an 18 unobtainable. But when designing the rest of the game, they had to assume something. And the average was the best thing they could assume for balance.This is impossible. You really need to refresh yourself on how stats work. You want to claim that the average is impossible to get unless you take the array. You are wrong. It is actually more likely to be the average (or very close) than any other set of values. That's why it is the AVERAGE. Then you want to claim that the only place where the rolling and array will be compared is at a table of 5 people. you are wrong. The game is played by millions. The designers didn't make it so that it only worked for a specific set of five people sitting in a room in Michigan, they made it to work for millions. Which means they had to take rolling into account into the aggregate of tables. Yes, obviously, characters can vary wildly when you roll. That's the point of rolling. That is the cost-benefit that many many people want no part of. HOWEVER, just because a single person rolls above the average doesn't disprove the existence of the average. Nor is a single person rolls below it. Or even if ten people roll above it. Because that isn't how statistics work. Claiming that the game can only be designed or conceived of at the group level, and not the level of the game as it is played by millions of people is ridiculous, because then the concept of balance wouldn't even be a discussion point.Sure it will. That's how stats work. That's how probability works.The point is Max, unilaterally declaring yourself infallible because you can make the rules isn't a good attitude towards the game. I don't want players doing it either. But this constant refrain of "I'm the DM. I make the rules. Only players who obey are welcome" drives me up the wall.No, it doesn't lead to that. Read my post instead of trying to make me out to be incapable of doing anything other than fallacies. I was showing all of the rule changes a DM can make under this view of absolute authority. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. And your ruling exists solely because of your own preference for aesthetics. Nothing else.</blockquote>

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